Destroy Me (Shatter Me, #1.5)

by Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes I wish I could step outside of myself for a while. I want to leave this worn body behind, but my chains are too many, my weights too heavy. This life is all that’s left of me. And I know I won’t be able to meet myself in the mirror for the rest of the day.

I will give no one the satisfaction of my death.

“My opinions,” I say to him, quietly this time, “should not so easily break your own. Stand by your convictions. Form clear and logical arguments. Even if I disagree.”

She is a soft, deadly creature. Kind and timid and terrifying. She’s completely out of control and has no idea what she’s capable of. And even though she hates me, I can’t help but be fascinated by her. I’m enchanted by her pretend-innocence; jealous, even, of the power she wields so unwittingly. I want so much to be a part

of her world. I want to know what it’s like to be in her mind, to feel what she feels. It seems a tremendous weight to carry.

What a beautiful disaster.

But the truth is, I was distracted. By her.

That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.

I lost her. She hates me.

It’s a strange thing, to never know peace. To know that no matter where you go, there is no sanctuary. That the threat of pain is always a whisper away.

The asylum kills people every day, the world has already been taught to fear me, and my home is the same place where my father locked me in my room every night and my mother screamed at me for being the abomination she was forced to raise.

She put my hand in the fire once. Just to see if it would burn, she said. Just to check if it was a regular hand, she said. I was 6 years old then. I remember because it was my birthday.

But they do fear me. And that is all I require.

“Let their fates serve as an example to you. We do not welcome traitors in The Reestablishment. And we do not forgive.”

“Never forget,” I say, quietly now, “that if I wanted your job, I could have it. And never forget that the man you so eagerly serve is the same man who taught me how to fire a gun when I was nine years old.”

“Deliver your message, soldier. And then memorize this one: do not ever speak to me again.”

My thoughts, I think, will soon be sound. My mind, I hope, will soon be found.

I wish

all the time for a friend.

I grieve nothing. I take everything.

This is my life. This sorry world.

Because the truth is, I am nothing but a coward.

I’ve come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The one who never apologizes and therefore seeks no forgiveness. Because in the end it is our emotions that make us weak, not our actions.

People seldom realize that they tell lies with their lips and truths with their eyes all the time.

Put a man in a room with something he’s hidden and then ask him where he’s hidden it; he’ll tell you he doesn’t know; he’ll tell you you’ve got the wrong man; but he’ll almost always glance at its exact location.

I could live here, I think. Live where gravity does not know my name. Here I am unbound, untethered by the chains of this life. I am a different body, a different

shell, and my weight is carried by the hands of friends. So many nights I’ve wished I could fall asleep under this sheet.

“You have betrayed yourself, son. You think you’re very clever,” he says, “but you’re forgetting who taught you your tricks.”

“You have disappointed me in so many ways,” he says, his voice deceptively soft. “Please don’t let this be another.”

“If I were to shoot three holes in her head, how would that make you feel?” He stares at me. Watches me. “Disappointed, because you’d have lost your pet project? Or devastated, because you’d have lost the girl you love?”

Swallow the tears back often enough and they’ll start feeling like acid dripping down your throat.

Love is a heartless bastard. I’m driving myself insane.

But now she’s holding a gun. And pointing it at my heart.

And I can’t help but be amazed at the power such small, unassuming animals wield over us; they so easily break down our defenses.